Using ledger sensors to enable contextual contracts across various enterprise blockchain applications

ABSTRACT

A system, method, and computer program product provides contextual contracts across various enterprise blockchain applications. In an aspect of the present disclosure, a method is disclosed including receiving a contextual contract for addition to a blockchain. The contextual contract includes at least one state dependent term. The method further includes appending a block to the blockchain based on the received contextual contract and in response to appending the block, activating a ledger sensor for the contextual contract. The ledger sensor is configured to monitor at least one of the blockchain and at least one other blockchain for transactions that correspond to the at least one term. The method further includes receiving from the ledger sensor data about transactions that corresponding to the at least one term and finalizing the contextual contract by appending a block to the blockchain based on the received data and the contextual contract.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to blockchains and in particular toenabling contextually aware smart contracts across blockchains.

BACKGROUND

Blockchain technology was developed as a way of providing a publiclytransparent and decentralized ledger that is configured to track andstore digital transactions in a publicly verifiable, secure, andhardened manner to prevent tampering or revision.

A typical blockchain includes three primary functions: read, write, andvalidate. For example, a user of the blockchain must have the ability toread the data that resides on the blockchain. A user of the blockchainmust also have the ability to write, e.g. append, data to theblockchain. Every write operation starts out as a proposed transactionthat is posted on the network. The proposed transaction may not alwaysbe valid, for example, it may be malformed (syntax errors), or it mayconstitute an attempt to perform a task for which the submitter is notauthorized. Validation refers to filtering out invalid transactions andthen deciding on the exact order for the remaining, valid, transactionsto be appended to the blockchain. This process is often calledconsensus.

Once ordered, the transactions are packaged into blocks which are inturn appended to the blockchain. Each new block that is appended to theblockchain also includes a hash of the previous block. Accordingly, aseach new block is added, the security and integrity of the entireblockchain is further enhanced. It is important to note that once datais written to the blockchain, for example, once a block includingtransactions has been appended to the blockchain, that data can nolonger be altered or modified. In a typical blockchain, the anonymity ofthe users is protected through the use of pseudonyms and the transactiondata itself is protected through the use of cryptography, e.g., via theuse of hash codes.

Recently, the use of blockchain technology has expanded beyond cryptocurrency, to provide a framework for the execution of smart contracts.Smart contracts are self executing agreements between parties that haveall of the relevant covenants spelled out in code, and settleautomatically, depending on future signatures or trigger events. Byleveraging blockchain technologies, smart contracts, once appended tothe blockchain, cannot be revoked, denied, or reversed, sincedecentralized execution removes them from the control of any one party.

BRIEF SUMMARY

The system, method, and computer program product described hereinprovides contextual contracts across various enterprise blockchainapplications.

In an aspect of the present disclosure, a method is disclosed. Themethod includes receiving a contextual contract for addition to ablockchain. The contextual contract includes at least one term. Themethod further includes appending a block to the blockchain based on thereceived contextual contract and in response to appending the block,activating a ledger sensor for the contextual contract. The ledgersensor is configured to monitor at least one of the blockchain and atleast one other blockchain for transactions that correspond to the atleast one term. The method further includes receiving from the ledgersensor data about transactions that corresponds to the at least one termand finalizing the contextual contract by appending a block to theblockchain based on the received data and the contextual contract.

In aspects of the present disclosure apparatus, systems, and computerprogram products in accordance with the above aspect may also beprovided.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The details of the present disclosure, both as to its structure andoperation, can best be understood by referring to the accompanyingdrawings, in which like reference numbers and designations refer to likeelements.

FIG. 1 is a system diagram illustrating a blockchain in accordance withan aspect of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a system diagram illustrating validator nodes of theblockchain of FIG. 1 in accordance with an aspect of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 3 is a system diagram illustrating nodes storing the ledger of theblockchain of FIG. 1 in accordance with an aspect of the presentdisclosure;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the interaction between a contextualcontract and a ledger sensor in accordance with an aspect of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a smart contract registry in accordancewith an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of a method according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 7 is an exemplary block diagram of a computer system in whichprocesses involved in the system, method, and computer program productdescribed herein may be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Smart contracts deployed on blockchains are often limited in both scopeand reach because they are static and are not context aware. Forexample, a generic smart contract that is appended to a blockchain mayonly be executable based on information explicitly passed to it fromother transactions that are also appended to the same blockchain. In abusiness enterprise environment, however, the use of a single blockchainfor every aspect of the business may not be tenable. Further, evenwithin a single blockchain, smart contracts are incapable of monitoringand extracting state information maintained in the ledger.

In some aspects, an enterprise may wish to deploy a separate blockchainfor one or more of the enterprise's business unit silos. For example, asmart contract for the sale of a good or service may be appended to acontracts blockchain associated with a contracts business unit of theenterprise. A received payment transaction for the good or service basedon the contract, however, may be appended to an accounts receivableblockchain associated with an accounts receivable business unit of theenterprise. However, because the smart contract for the sale is notcontext aware, the smart contract has no way of knowing that the paymentassociated with the smart contract has been received and appended to theaccounts receivable blockchain.

The present disclosure provides contextual contracts across variousinter-enterprise and intra-enterprise blockchain applications.Contextual contracts are smart contracts that include state dependentterms. The state dependent terms may be based on events that occur inthe future. For example, a contextual contract may include a term thatparty A receives 10% of the sales of a product sold by party B. At thetime that the contextual contract is validated and appended to theblockchain 100, the future sales of the product are not known. Thereceipt of 10% of the sales of a product may be considered a statedependent term. As another example, a company X may enter into acontextual contract pledging to donate $1 to charity Y for every productsold by its participating retail stores in a given month. At the time ofdeployment of the contextual contract (start of the contract period andappending of the contract to the blockchain), the amount of money thatwill be donated by company X is unknown. At the time of final contractexecution (as stipulated by the terms of the contextual contract), theonly way to determine the amount of money that company X has totransfer, is to look through the ledger of the blockchain for thequantity of products sold across different retail stores (each being adifferent contract between the retail store and end customers). Thedetermination of the number of products sold may be an example of astate dependent term. A ledger sensor may be activated by the contextualcontract to search through one or more blockchains for datacorresponding to the contextual contract. Ledger sensors are describedin more detail below.

Contextual contracts may be useful in many different circumstances toallow for the tracking of transactions, smart contracts, etc. In anexample, a bank may utilize a contextual contract to track informationrelated to a mortgagee. The contextual contract may monitor thefinancial performance of the company (e.g., is the company payinginterest regularly for all its loans across multiple banks, is it payingits suppliers on time) using a ledger sensor. The bank may use thisinformation to make future lending decisions for the company. In someaspects, a consortium of banks could use the same ledger sensor tomonitor performance of the company across all of its lending contracts.

In another example, a contextual contract and ledger sensor may beuseful to donors of a non-profit company. For example, when differentdonors donate large sums of money to the company, they would like totrack the expenses paid to various sources by the company. The donorsmay also be interested to know how much money the non-profit has left atthe end of the fiscal year. Typically, if non-profits do not use up to arequired amount, some of the funding gets decreased. The ledger sensormay monitor the company and report that information to a contextualcontract.

In another example, a credit card company may offer a promotion “Spend$X across brands/sites A, B, C in a given month and get cash back of$Y.” This may be submitted to a blockchain as a contextual contractwhere the final execution of the contextual contract will be based onthe actual spending as monitored by a ledger sensor. For example, theledger sensor will monitor purchases across these brands and determinethe cumulative amount spent. For example, each purchase may be atransaction on a ledger that is monitored by a ledger sensor.

In another example, contextual contracts and ledger sensors may be usedin voting. Voters may cast votes by submitting them for addition to ablockchain. Different ledger sensors may count the submitted votes basedon different criteria (e.g., location, demographic identifiers, gender,ethnicity, party affiliation, etc. of the voters). The contextualcontracts may monitor the voting using the ledger sensors and maydetermine the outcome of an election based on the monitoring. Contextualcontracts may also be used to generate plots/graphs based on the data.

With reference now to FIG. 1, a blockchain 100 includes a plurality ofblocks 102. Each block 102 is a data structure that includes datarepresenting transactions 104, for example, smart contracts, paymentreceipts, or any other transaction. As described above, as newtransactions 104 are submitted to the blockchain 100 and validated,additional blocks 102 are generated and appended to the blockchain 100.Each new block 102 also includes a hash 106 of the immediately previousblock 102. For example, block 2 includes a hash of block 1, block nincludes a hash of block n−1, etc.

With reference now to FIGS. 2 and 4, any transactions submitted toblockchain 100 are validated by a set of validator nodes 200 ofblockchain 100. Each validator node 202 performs a series ofmathematical computations to determine whether a transaction 104 isvalid and also determines whether the transaction complies with therules of the blockchain. A consensus of the set of validator nodes 200is required to add the transaction 104 to a block 102 for appending tothe blockchain 100.

With reference now to FIGS. 3 and 4, in some aspects, blockchain 100 isstored in a decentralized manner on a plurality of nodes 300. Nodes 300may each include memory 302 that stores at least a portion of a ledger304 of blockchain 100. In some aspects, every node 300 may store theentire ledger 304. In some aspects, each node 300 may store a portion ofledger 304. In some aspects, some or all of nodes 300 may be also bevalidator nodes 200. In some aspects, some or all of blockchain 100 maybe stored in a centralized manner.

With reference now to FIG. 4, an example contextual contract 402 isillustrated including a value 404 (e.g., a numerical value, monetaryvalue, or any other value) and a state 406 (e.g., a number of items of aproduct sold in all retail outlets of a firm, or other similarinformation that may be dependent on other sources). In some aspects,contextual contract 402 may receive value 404 from a transaction 408, oraggregated from multiple transactions 408, and the value 404 may be sentto another contextual contract 420 via a transaction 410. Contextualcontract 402 may also receive information about the state 406 from anevent 412, or aggregated from multiple events 412, and the state 406 maybe sent as an event 414 to another contextual contract 420. For example,event 412 may be an event associated with a contextual contract 430.

In some aspects, transactions 408, 410 and events 412, 414 may bemonitored and shared through the use of listeners or ledger sensors 418.In some aspects, ledger sensors 418 may, for example, be softwareimplemented alongside blockchain 100 that monitor every transaction 408,410 written to blockchain 100 for information that the ledger sensors418 is instructed to find. In some aspects, one or more ledger sensors418 may be activated by a contextual contract 402 when the contextualcontract 402 is validated or appended to a blockchain 100. For example,contextual contract 402 may include a term specifying that a ledgersensor 418 should be activated. In some aspects, the appending of anytransaction to blockchain 100 may automatically activate a ledgersensors 418.

In some aspects, the contextual contract 402 may include one or moresearch terms to be used by the ledger sensor 418. In some aspects,ledger sensor 418 may alternatively parse, sensor, or extract relevantsearch terms from contextual contract 402. For example, ledger sensor418 may parse the contextual contract 402 for the state information 406and may monitor other transactions for information related to the state406 of the contextual contract 402. For example, the search terms mayinclude meta data, key words, terms of the contextual contract 402,applications, enterprise blockchains to be searched, name space, orother criteria, that the activated ledger sensor 418 may use to searchfor information or data. In some aspects, contextual contract 402 mayspecify what blockchain ledger sensor 418 will monitor when activated.For example, in some aspects, contextual contract 402 may specify thatledger sensor 418 will monitor blockchain 100. In some aspects,contextual contract 402 may specify that ledger sensor 418 will also oralternatively monitor one or more other blockchains, e.g., otherintra-enterprise blockchains, inter-enterprise blockchains, publiclyaccessible blockchains, etc. In some aspects, the ledger sensor 418itself will be programmed to monitor a specific blockchain or set ofblockchains.

In some aspects, ledger sensors 418 are configured to monitor newtransactions, events, contextual contracts, and smart contracts that areappended to a blockchain. In some aspects, ledger sensors 418 may alsobe configured to monitor transactions, events, contextual contracts, andsmart contracts that have already been appended to the blockchain. Insome aspects, ledger sensors 418 are configured to monitor transactions,contextual contracts, and smart contracts across multiple blockchains atthe same time. For example, ledgers sensors 418 may be configured tomonitor blockchain 100 to which contextual contract 402 has beenappended, other blockchains associated with the same enterprise that isrunning blockchain 100, blockchains associated with other enterprises,decentralized blockchains, or any other database that may contain datarelevant to the contextual contract 402. For example, ledger sensors 418may be configured to monitor transactions, events, contextual contracts,and smart contracts appended to blockchains or transactions associatedwith a first enterprise business silo 440 and a second enterprisebusiness silo 450. In some aspects, the transactions monitored by ledgersensors 418 may be on the same blockchain as the contextual contract402.

In some aspects, for example, ledger sensors 418 may monitortransactions based on conditions found in the contextual contract 402.For example, if the contextual contract 402 includes a condition thatfor each time an event occurs, the contextual contract will perform someaction, ledger sensors 418 will monitor transactions for the triggeringevent. If the event has not occurred in a transaction, the ledger sensor418 will not increment a counter. On the other hand, if the event hasoccurred in a transaction, the ledger sensor 418 will increment thecounter. In this manner, the number of occurrences may be tracked andaggregated across transactions by ledger sensor 418 and may be providedto the contextual contract 402 for later use.

The ledger sensors 418 are configured to determine whether a monitoredtransaction, contextual contract, or smart contract includes terms,events, values, etc., that are relevant to the contextual contract 402that activated the ledger sensor 418. In some aspects, the method ofdetermination by ledger sensors 418 may be predetermined in thespecification of each ledger sensor 418. For example, the specificationof a ledger sensor may specify that the ledger sensor uses stringmatching, or any other determination criteria based on the particularstate information that the ledger sensor 418 must monitor. In someaspects, ledger sensors 418 may determine whether any terms, events,values, or other information of a monitored transaction, contextualcontract, or smart contract match the search term specified by thecontextual contract 402. Ledger sensors 418 may then provide any terms,events, values, etc. that are determined to match the search terms ofthe contextual contract 402 to the contextual contract 402 for updatingthe blockchain that the contextual contract 402 has been appended to.For example, where the contextual contract 402 includes a search termfor the sale of a product, the ledger sensor 418 may search othertransactions and smart contracts for the sale of the product and captureor aggregate any matching data, e.g., quantity, price, etc., of thesales together. The matching data may then be provided or returned tocontextual contract 402 and may be appended to the blockchain 100. Forexample, ledger sensor 418 may generate a new transaction or an updateto the contextual contract 402 including the matching data and maysubmit the new transaction or update for addition to the blockchain 100.The matching data may be used to finalize contextual contract 402, forexample, by submitting a finalized version of the contextual contract402 based on the matching data to the blockchain 100. In some aspects,contextual contract 402 need not be finalized where, for example, theterms of contextual contract 402 allow contextual contract 402 toperiodically make use of the values returned by ledger sensors 418 toexecute.

With reference again to FIGS. 1 and 4, in some aspects, the monitoreddata 114 may be stored in a database 108 associated with blockchain 100.For example, where the contextual contract 402 includes a search termbased on sales of a particular product, ledger sensor 418 may aggregatetogether any sales of the product that it finds in other contextualcontracts, smart contracts, or transactions for later use withcontextual contract 402. In some aspects, ledger sensors 418 may recordthe monitored data 114 that matches the search terms in database 108.For example, each sale may be recorded by ledger sensors 418 in database108, e.g., for later use with contextual contract 402. For example,ledger sensors 418 may count a quantity of items sold across differenttransactions, contextual contracts, and smart contracts and store thequantity in database 108. In some aspects, database 108 is decentralizedwhere each of the set of nodes 300 includes all or a portion of thedatabase 108. In some aspects, database 108 may be stored separatelyfrom nodes 300, e.g., in a separate distributed network, on a server, orin any other location. In some aspects, database 108 may be centralized,e.g., stored by computing devices of a single entity.

In some aspects, database 108 may store monitored data 114 associatedwith more than one blockchain. For example, database 108 may storemonitored data 114 associated with blockchain 100, other blockchainsassociated with business unit silos of the same enterprise, blockchainsassociated with other enterprises, public blockchains, etc.

In some aspects, ledger sensor 418 may be a generic ledger sensor 110that is included in database 108 for use by more than one contextualcontract 402. For example, where a certain term, key word, etc. is oftenused as a search term by more than one contextual contract 402 appendedto blockchain 100 or any other blockchain associated with database 108,a generic ledger sensor 110 may be provided as part of database 108 foruse by more than one of the contextual contracts 402 at the same time.In some aspects, each ledger sensor 418 may alternatively be generatedspecifically for the contextual contract 402 that activated it. In someaspects, once a ledger sensor 418 has been activated by a contextualcontract 402, the ledger sensor 418 may be added to database 108 forlater use by other contextual contracts.

In some aspects, with reference now to FIGS. 1 and 5, database 108 mayalso include a smart contract registry 112. In some aspects, smartcontract registry 112 stores data relating to contextual contracts,smart contracts, and transactions appended to blockchain 100. In someaspects, smart contract registry 112 may also store data relating tocontextual contracts, smart contracts, and transactions appended to oneor more additional blockchains, e.g., other blockchains associated withbusiness unit silos of the same enterprise, blockchains associated withother enterprises, public blockchains, etc. Smart contract registry 112may include, for example, a unique identifier associated with eachcontextual contract, smart contract, and transaction appended toblockchain 100 or any other blockchains for which smart registry 112stores data. The unique identifier may include a link or other data thatmay direct a ledger sensor 418 to a particular contextual contract,smart contract, or transaction. In some aspects, smart contract registry112 may also include a database of contract terms associated with eachcontextual contract, smart contract, and transaction. For example, aledger sensor 418 activated by a contextual contract 402 may searchsmart contract registry 112 for contract terms that match the statedependent search terms provided by contextual contract 402 and may usethe unique identifier to find the corresponding contextual contract,smart contract, or transaction 502 that includes the matching contractterms. In some aspects, smart contract registry 112 may also includemeta data/key words associated with each contextual contract, smartcontract, or transaction. In some aspects, smart contract registry 112may also include applications associated with each contextual contract,smart contract, or transaction. In some aspects, smart contract registry112 may also include an identification of the blockchain to which eachcontextual contract, smart contract, or transaction has been appended.In some aspects, smart contract registry 112 may also include a namespace associated with each contextual contract, smart contract, ortransaction. In some aspects, contextual contracts, smart contracts, andtransactions in one name space may not be able to view or monitorcontextual contracts, smart contracts, and transactions in another namespace, thereby providing isolation. Smart contract registry 112 may alsoor alternatively include any other data that may be relevant to, ormatch the search terms of, a contextual contract 402.

With reference now to FIG. 6, a method 600 for using contextualcontracts with ledger sensors on a blockchain is disclosed.

At 602, blockchain 100, e.g., one or more validators 200 or nodes 300 ofblockchain 100, receives a contextual contract 402 including at leastone term for addition to a blockchain 100. For example, the contextualcontract 402 may be received by a node 300 of blockchain 100, by avalidator 200 of blockchain 100 or by any other portion of blockchain100.

At 604, a block is appended to the blockchain based on the receivedcontextual contract 402. For example, the validators 200 may validatethe contextual contract by reaching a consensus on whether to add thecontextual contract to blockchain 100, may add the contextual contract402 to the next block to be added to the blockchain 100, the previousblock may be hashed, the hash may be added to the next block, and thenext block may be appended to the blockchain 100.

At 606, a ledger sensor 418 is activated in response to a blockcontaining the contextual contract 402 having been appended to theblockchain 100. In some aspects, the ledger sensor 418 may be activatedprior to the block containing the contextual contract 402 being appendedto the blockchain 100. In some aspects, the contextual contract includesa term, e.g., an instruction, trigger, etc., specifying that a ledgersensor 418 should be activated. In some aspects, ledger sensor 418 maybe activated at the time of deployment. In some aspects, ledger sensors418 may be activated after a period of delay, e.g., a number of minutes,hours, days, etc. The period of delay may be pre-defined as part of theledger sensor 418, specified in the contextual contract 402, or set byblockchain 100 itself, for example, in a genesis block of the blockchain100.

At 608, ledger sensor 418 monitors blockchain 100 for transactions thatcorrespond to the at least one term. In some aspects, ledger sensor 418may also or alternatively monitor other blockchains for transactionsthat correspond to the at least one term. For example, ledger sensor 418may monitor other blockchains associated with business unit silos of thesame enterprise, blockchains associated with other enterprises, publicblockchains, etc. In some aspects, contextual contract 402 may specifythe blockchains that ledger sensor 418 should monitor for the at leastone term.

At 610, ledger sensor 418 may detect a transaction that corresponds tothe at least one term. For example, ledger sensor 418 may determine thatat least one term of the transaction matches the at least one term ofthe contextual contract, may determine that a value of the transactioncorresponds to the at least one contract, or may make other similardeterminations. In some aspects, the ledger sensor may detect thetransaction by searching smart contract registry 112.

At 612, ledger sensor 418 may generate data based on the comparisonincluding, for example, extracting a value from the transaction thatcorresponds to the at least one term. In some aspects, ledger sensor 418may aggregate the values extracted from a plurality of transactions thatare determined to correspond to the at least one term. For example,where the at least one term is for the sale of a product and the ledgersensor 418 detects the sale of the product in more than one transaction,the ledger sensor 418 may aggregate the number of sales together in thedata. In some aspects, the data may be stored in database 108. Theformat of the generated data may be arbitrary and based on theparticular features of the values that are extracted.

At 614, the data is returned to blockchain 100 for use with contextualcontract 402. For example, ledger sensor 418 may return the data toblockchain 100 and may generate and submit a transaction including thedata to the blockchain for addition to blockchain 100.

At 616, the contextual contract 402 may be finalized by submitting atransaction based on the contextual contract and the data to blockchain100 for addition to blockchain 100.

FIG. 7 illustrates a schematic of an example computer or processingsystem that may implement any portion of blockchain 100, validators 200,nodes 300, systems, methods, and computer program products describedherein in one embodiment of the present disclosure. The computer systemis only one example of a suitable processing system and is not intendedto suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality ofembodiments of the methodology described herein. The processing systemshown may be operational with numerous other general purpose or specialpurpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples ofwell-known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations thatmay be suitable for use with the processing system may include, but arenot limited to, personal computer systems, server computer systems, thinclients, thick clients, handheld or laptop devices, multiprocessorsystems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmableconsumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputer systems, mainframecomputer systems, and distributed cloud computing environments thatinclude any of the above systems or devices, and the like.

The computer system may be described in the general context of computersystem executable instructions, such as program modules, being executedby a computer system. Generally, program modules may include routines,programs, objects, components, logic, data structures, and so on thatperform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.The computer system may be practiced in distributed cloud computingenvironments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices thatare linked through a communications network. In a distributed cloudcomputing environment, program modules may be located in both local andremote computer system storage media including memory storage devices.

The components of computer system may include, but are not limited to,one or more processors or processing units 12, a system memory 16, and abus 14 that couples various system components including system memory 16to processor 12. The processor 12 may include a software module 10 thatperforms the methods described herein. The module 10 may be programmedinto the integrated circuits of the processor 12, or loaded from memory16, storage device 18, or network 24 or combinations thereof.

Bus 14 may represent one or more of any of several types of busstructures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheralbus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus usingany of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and notlimitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture(ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA)bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, andPeripheral Component Interconnects (PCI) bus.

Computer system may include a variety of computer system readable media.Such media may be any available media that is accessible by computersystem, and it may include both volatile and non-volatile media,removable and non-removable media.

System memory 16 can include computer system readable media in the formof volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM) and/or cachememory or others. Computer system may further include otherremovable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computer system storagemedia. By way of example only, storage system 18 can be provided forreading from and writing to a non-removable, non-volatile magnetic media(e.g., a “hard drive”). Although not shown, a magnetic disk drive forreading from and writing to a removable, non-volatile magnetic disk(e.g., a “floppy disk”), and an optical disk drive for reading from orwriting to a removable, non-volatile optical disk such as a CD-ROM,DVD-ROM or other optical media can be provided. In such instances, eachcan be connected to bus 14 by one or more data media interfaces.

Computer system may also communicate with one or more external devices26 such as a keyboard, a pointing device, a display 28, etc.; one ormore devices that enable a user to interact with computer system; and/orany devices (e.g., network card, modem, etc.) that enable computersystem to communicate with one or more other computing devices. Suchcommunication can occur via Input/Output (I/O) interfaces 20.

Still yet, computer system can communicate with one or more networks 24such as a local area network (LAN), a general wide area network (WAN),and/or a public network (e.g., the Internet) via network adapter 22. Asdepicted, network adapter 22 communicates with the other components ofcomputer system via bus 14. It should be understood that although notshown, other hardware and/or software components could be used inconjunction with computer system. Examples include, but are not limitedto: microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external diskdrive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, and data archival storagesystems, etc.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the presentinvention may be embodied as a system, method or computer programproduct. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the formof an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment(including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or anembodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may allgenerally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.”Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of acomputer program product embodied in one or more computer readablemedium(s) having computer readable program code embodied thereon.

Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may beutilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signalmedium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readablestorage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic,magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system,apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. Morespecific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readablestorage medium would include the following: a portable computerdiskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory(ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flashmemory), a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an opticalstorage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combinationof the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer readablestorage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store aprogram for use by or in connection with an instruction executionsystem, apparatus, or device.

A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signalwith computer readable program code embodied therein, for example, inbaseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated signal may takeany of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to,electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. Acomputer readable signal medium may be any computer readable medium thatis not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate,propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with aninstruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmittedusing any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless,wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination ofthe foregoing.

Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of thepresent invention may be written in any combination of one or moreprogramming languages, including an object oriented programming languagesuch as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional proceduralprogramming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similarprogramming languages, a scripting language such as Perl, VBS or similarlanguages, and/or functional languages such as Lisp and ML andlogic-oriented languages such as Prolog. The program code may executeentirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as astand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partlyon a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. Inthe latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user'scomputer through any type of network, including a local area network(LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to anexternal computer (for example, through the Internet using an InternetService Provider).

Aspects of the present invention are described with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer program instructions. These computer program instructions maybe provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, specialpurpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus toproduce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via theprocessor of the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified inthe flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computerreadable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable dataprocessing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readablemedium produce an article of manufacture including instructions whichimplement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer,other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to causea series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, otherprogrammable apparatus or other devices to produce a computerimplemented process such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer or other programmable apparatus provide processes forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof code, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be notedthat, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in theblock may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, twoblocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantiallyconcurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverseorder, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be notedthat each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, andcombinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchartillustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-basedsystems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations ofspecial purpose hardware and computer instructions.

The computer program product may comprise all the respective featuresenabling the implementation of the methodology described herein, andwhich—when loaded in a computer system—is able to carry out the methods.Computer program, software program, program, or software, in the presentcontext means any expression, in any language, code or notation, of aset of instructions intended to cause a system having an informationprocessing capability to perform a particular function either directlyor after either or both of the following: (a) conversion to anotherlanguage, code or notation; and/or (b) reproduction in a differentmaterial form.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularembodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. Asused herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended toinclude the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicatesotherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify thepresence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements,and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of oneor more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements,components, and/or groups thereof.

The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of allmeans or step plus function elements, if any, in the claims below areintended to include any structure, material, or act for performing thefunction in combination with other claimed elements as specificallyclaimed. The description of the present invention has been presented forpurposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to beexhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Manymodifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and the practical application, and to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention forvarious embodiments with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

Various aspects of the present disclosure may be embodied as a program,software, or computer instructions embodied in a computer or machineusable or readable medium, which causes the computer or machine toperform the steps of the method when executed on the computer,processor, and/or machine. A program storage device readable by amachine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by themachine to perform various functionalities and methods described in thepresent disclosure is also provided.

The system and method of the present disclosure may be implemented andrun on a general-purpose computer or special-purpose computer system.The terms “computer system” and “computer network” as may be used in thepresent application may include a variety of combinations of fixedand/or portable computer hardware, software, peripherals, and storagedevices. The computer system may include a plurality of individualcomponents that are networked or otherwise linked to performcollaboratively, or may include one or more stand-alone components. Thehardware and software components of the computer system of the presentapplication may include and may be included within fixed and portabledevices such as desktop, laptop, and/or server. A module may be acomponent of a device, software, program, or system that implements some“functionality”, which can be embodied as software, hardware, firmware,electronic circuitry, or etc.

Although specific embodiments of the present invention have beendescribed, it will be understood by those of skill in the art that thereare other embodiments that are equivalent to the described embodiments.Accordingly, it is to be understood that the invention is not to belimited by the specific illustrated embodiments, but only by the scopeof the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method implemented by at least one hardwareprocessor, comprising: receiving a contextual contract for addition to ablockchain, the contextual contract including at least one term;appending a block to the blockchain based on the received contextualcontract; in response to appending the block, activating a ledger sensorfor the contextual contract, the ledger sensor configured to monitor atleast one of the blockchain and at least one other blockchain fortransactions that correspond to the at least one term; receiving fromthe ledger sensor data about transactions that correspond to the atleast one term; and finalizing the contextual contract by appending ablock to the blockchain based on the received data and the contextualcontract.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: associating theat least one term with an identifier for the contextual contract on asmart contract registry, the smart contract registry storing datacomprising: identifiers corresponding to transactions appended to atleast one of the blockchain and the at least one other blockchain; andat least one term associated with each identifier; and wherein theledger sensor is configured to monitor at least one of the blockchainand the at least one other blockchain based at least in part on the datastored in the smart contract registry.
 3. The method of claim 2, whereinthe smart contract registry is a decentralized database.
 4. The methodof claim 2, wherein the at least one term comprises at least one of metadata, key words, applications, enterprise blockchains, and name spaces.5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving a secondcontextual contract for addition to a blockchain, the second contextualcontract including the at least one term; appending a second block tothe blockchain based on the received second contextual contract; and inresponse to appending the second block, activating the same ledgersensor for the second contextual contract based on the second contextualcontract including the at least one term.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein the data received from the ledger sensor includes a valuecorresponding to the at least one term.
 7. The method of claim 6,wherein the value corresponding to the at least one term is updated bythe ledger sensor each time a transaction that corresponds to the atleast one term is appended to at least one of the blockchain and the atleast one another blockchain.
 8. A system, comprising: at least onehardware processor configured to: receive a contextual contract foraddition to a blockchain, the contextual contract including at least oneterm; append a block to the blockchain based on the received contextualcontract; in response to appending the block, activate a ledger sensorfor the contextual contract, the ledger sensor configured to monitor atleast one of the blockchain and at least one other blockchain fortransactions that correspond to the at least one term; receive from theledger sensor data about transactions that correspond to the at leastone term; and finalize the contextual contract by appending a block tothe blockchain based on the received data and the contextual contract.9. The system of claim 8, further comprising: a smart contract registrycomprising: identifiers corresponding to transactions appended to atleast one of the blockchain and the at least one other blockchain; andat least one term associated with each identifier; wherein the ledgersensor is configured to monitor at least one of the blockchain and theat least one other blockchain based at least in part on the data storedin the smart contract registry.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein thesmart contract registry is a decentralized database.
 11. The system ofclaim 9, wherein the at least one term comprises at least one of metadata, key words, applications, enterprise blockchains, and name spaces.12. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one hardware processoris further configured to: receive a second contextual contract foraddition to a blockchain, the second contextual contract including theat least one term; append a second block to the blockchain based on thereceived second contextual contract; and in response to appending thesecond block, activate the same ledger sensor for the second contextualcontract based on the second contextual contract including the at leastone term.
 13. The system of claim 8, wherein the data received from theledger sensor includes a value corresponding to the at least one term.14. The system of claim 13, wherein the value corresponding to the atleast one term is updated by the ledger sensor each time a transactionthat corresponds to the at least one term is appended to at least one ofthe blockchain and the at least one another blockchain.
 15. Anon-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions thatwhen executed by at least one hardware processor, configure the at leastone hardware processor to: receive a contextual contract for addition toa blockchain, the contextual contract including at least one term;append a block to the blockchain based on the received contextualcontract; in response to appending the block, activate a ledger sensorfor the contextual contract, the ledger sensor configured to monitor atleast one of the blockchain and at least one other blockchain fortransactions that correspond to the at least one term; receive from theledger sensor data about transactions that correspond to the at leastone term; and finalize the contextual contract by appending a block tothe blockchain based on the received data and the contextual contract.16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein theinstructions further configuring the at least one hardware processor to:associate the at least one term with an identifier for the contextualcontract on a smart contract registry, the smart contract registrystoring data comprising: identifiers corresponding to transactionsappended to at least one of the blockchain and the at least one otherblockchain; and at least one term associated with each identifier; andwherein the ledger sensor is configured to monitor at least one of theblockchain and the at least one other blockchain based at least in parton the data stored in the smart contract registry.
 17. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the atleast one term comprises at least one of meta data, key words,applications, enterprise blockchains, and name spaces.
 18. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein theinstructions further configure the at least one hardware processor to:receive a second contextual contract for addition to a blockchain, thesecond contextual contract including the at least one term; append asecond block to the blockchain based on the received second contextualcontract; and in response to appending the second block, activate thesame ledger sensor for the second contextual contract based on thesecond contextual contract including the at least one term.
 19. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein the datareceived from the ledger sensor includes a value corresponding to the atleast one term.
 20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim19, wherein the value corresponding to the at least one term is updatedby the ledger sensor each time a transaction that corresponds to the atleast one term is appended to at least one of the blockchain and the atleast one another blockchain.